Fault
by morph
Summary: The TARDIS crew go to see a movie and witness an injustice. 9th Doctor. Set between ‘The Doctor Dances’ and ‘Boom Town.’ One shot. Based on actual events.


AN/ This fic is based on actual events. Special thanks to eeveekitty85 and LilCosette for betaing. Dedicated to Cameron, Kyrie and Troy. Thanks for helping me through that hard time. May we never go through that again.

BBC owns everything Doctor Who.

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"Remind me again…_why_ are we watching this movie?" 

"Because it was either this or we go back to the Litteren Nebula and have our skin sunburned green again," the Doctor said in a hushed voice. "Besides, it was Jack's turn to decide what we do."

Rose sighed and scowled at the screen. Jack wanted to see a "new" movie from Rose's time, but not necessarily in London. They found a globe and spun it, stopping it at a random place; Adelaide, South Australia. The TARDIS landed in the middle of a tiny park across the way from a cinema. Jack took one look at the poster for a vampire movie hanging in the front and declared that they had to see it. It wasn't the usual type of movie Rose liked to see. She never really was into the whole vampires, werewolves, horror, blood and sex thing. At least Jack was having a good time. His eyes were alight and a huge grin was plastered on his face as they watched the film. The Doctor looked indifferent, merely rasing his eyebrows a few times at some of the more graphic scenes. After the first twenty minutes or so, Rose decided to make the most out of it and actually began to enjoy the movie, regardless of the unnecessary sex scene.

When the pace of the movie slowed, Rose took the opportunity to take a mental survey of the rest of the people in the theatre. It wasn't packed. There were maybe a dozen people there including Jack, the Doctor and herself. Most people where in pairs or groups. Only one man, sitting about four rows ahead of them, was alone.

Her attention was drawn to a group of four kids about as old as herself, perhaps a few years younger, sitting two rows in front of them. The group consisted of two girls and two boys. The girls were sitting beside each other with one boy on either end. The girls were holding hands with the boy beside them, suggesting to Rose that this was a double-date. It made her smile. Every now and then they would whisper something to each other that had to do with the movie. Rose caught a snippet of "oh, they're going to kiss. They're going to kiss." Then after the two protagonists on the screen did lock lips "I was right! Score one for me…and them." They seemed to be having a good time, and Rose was happy for them.

"Ha, Ha! Did you see that?" Jack asked Rose, regarding a very bloody death of a vampire. She thought he was a tad loud and jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, hushing him. This wasn't the first time she had had to remind the captain that talking too loud in a movie theatre is generally frowned upon.

Rose worked on finishing the popcorn that had been placed in her lap seeing as she was sitting in the middle. At the end of the movie, the kids and Jack cheered as the bad guys were slaughtered and made comments to themselves about the cheesiness of the final kiss. Then the credits began to roll. The Doctor, Rose and Jack stood and began to move to the aisle. The four kids were still in their seats, talking excitedly about the film.

An angry voice made the TARDIS trio turn around suddenly. The loner man was leaning against the front of the chairs in front of the four teens and was yelling at them for talking during the movie. He looked irate and unpredictable, like if he didn't have better control of himself he would have lashed out physically at the kids as well as verbally. Rose could see that his face was red and he swore several times at the startled teens. Then he stormed off, brushing angrily past Rose, Jack and the Doctor. Their faces were now also contorted in anger at this display. The Doctor looked back to the four teens. One of the boys had started to get up out of his seat to go after the guy but his girlfriend stopped him. The other girl was sitting in numb shock and drew imminent concern from her friends when she suddenly burst into tears.

"That wasn't fair," Rose said. "They didn't deserve that. They weren't _that_ loud. Jack was louder than them."

Jack wasn't offended. He was too busy feeling angry at the injustice the man had bestowed upon the kids. "I could get him," Jack said. "Make him apologise."

"No, it's best to leave it." The Doctor shook his head, his gaze still on the teens comforting their friend. She must have been given quite a shock.

Rose looked at him. "Come on, Doctor. I know it's not the end of the world, but can we really let that just go? That guy was mean and rude and he had no right."

"That's true," The Doctor responded, glancing one last time at the four friends. He assured himself that the crying girl would be okay and turned to leave. "But things like that happen every day. You can't catch every frustrated guy who yells at people for no rational reason."

Rose and Jack followed the Doctor out of the theatre, discontented that they could do nothing to really help the situation. Rose wanted to say something to the group as they exited the theatre shortly after them. All four of them looked emotionally worked up and the girl who had been crying had red eyes. She kept glancing nervously about, as if she expected the guy to jump out and attack them again.

The TARDIS trio walked out onto the street and towards the blue police box parked in the small grassy area outside the movie complex. Jack was the first to spot the irate man from the theatre. He stomped up to the blue box and started to kick it in anger.

"Hey!" Jack shouted, sprinting to the TARDIS. The Doctor and Rose saw him and ran up. The Doctor had a dark look in his eyes like Rose had never seen.

"Yeah, what?" the guy demanded.

"Kindly step away from the box or I'll remove something you probably won't want to have removed," The Doctor said, false cheer in his voice. He took out the sonic screwdriver and wiggled it in front of the guy's face. "You deserve as much for yelling at those kids back there."

The man gave them a dirty look that would have wilted a plant and walked away, mumbling under his breath. Rose reckoned he was off to find a pub to drown his frustrations. The Doctor turned to Rose and Jack and raised the TARDIS key.

"Right. Shall we go then?"


End file.
